Fixed-term contract - Bilingual Service Desk Shift Lead

Job Description

Description Overview:
We are looking for a bilingual Service Desk Shift Leader for our Japan-based L1 Service Desk operating within a global delivery model. The Shift Leader is accountable for people leadership, operational control, service quality, client communication and continuous improvement. The Shift Leader owns the overall performance, stability, compliance and development of the Japan team.
The Shift Leader ensures a consistent and professional user experience, effective collaboration with the global hubs and client stakeholders, and reliable execution of agreed processes. The role requires a holistic management approach to protect service continuity, employee wellbeing and client trust.

Job Description:
The Shift Leader leads the Japan Service Desk team and remains accountable for delivery. The role monitors performance, anticipates risks, coordinates corrective actions, maintains clear communication and ensures that instructions are understood and applied. The Shift Leader must combine strong people-management capability with operational knowledge of an IT Service Desk environment.
The selected candidate must have native-level Japanese and business-level English, with the confidence to communicate effectively with Japan-based users, client stakeholders, global delivery teams and Capgemini management. The Shift Leader is expected to be visible, available, proactive and able to work with limited supervision.

Service Window

The Shift Leader works primarily in shifts (9 hours shift, including 1 hour break)
Weekends & National Holidays with Compensatory off.
Weekdays: 7:00 ~ 22:00 JST
Weekends: 8:30 ~ 22:00 JST

The role requires flexibility to support exceptional operational situations, critical escalations, client priorities, or service-related matters when necessary. Temporary adjustments to working hours may occasionally be required and will be compensated in accordance with local regulations and company policies.
The Shift Leader is expected to ensure appropriate service oversight, communication, and escalation management at all times.

Required Skills

• Native-level Japanese and business-level English, both written and verbal.
• Proven experience leading a customer-facing Service Desk or IT support team in an international environment.
• Strong people-management skills, including coaching, performance follow-up, conflict management, motivation and team wellbeing.
• Ability to manage with limited supervision, remain effective under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills across all levels, with a calm, factual and politically appropriate approach.
• Strong operational management capability, including SLA/KPI monitoring, workforce planning, queue management, quality control, risk management and reporting.
• Solid knowledge of incident, request, escalation, knowledge and access-management processes in an ITIL-oriented environment.
• Working knowledge of ServiceNow, Genesys or equivalent contact-centre and ITSM tools.
• Ability to analyse data, identify trends and root causes, and translate findings into clear corrective actions.
• Strong ownership and accountability, including for work delegated to Shift Leads or other team members.
• Proactive, structured and confident approach, with a practical continuous-improvement mindset.
• Understanding of Japanese workplace expectations and the ability to collaborate effectively with global teams.

Responsibilities

1. Service Delivery, SLAs and KPIs
• Monitor the team’s SLAs, KPIs, queue, call flows, ticket ageing, backlog, availability and quality indicators, and ensure delivery against contractual targets.
• Provide the team with the staffing, guidance, priorities, tools and working conditions required to meet service targets.
• Identify performance gaps, analyse root causes, define corrective actions and track completion and effectiveness.
• Anticipate risks before they affect users, contractual commitments, service continuity or client confidence.
• Maintain effective shift handovers and verify that important events, pending actions, risks and priorities are transferred accurately.
• Remain accountable for the complete Japan service, including activities delegated to Shift Leads.

2. People Leadership and Team Wellbeing
• Lead, coach and motivate team members through regular individual and team interactions.
• Set clear objectives and expectations, follow up performance and address gaps promptly and fairly.
• Ensure that every team member receives timely information, feedback, support and development opportunities.
• Manage attendance, leave, working patterns, office presence, rota coverage and replacement needs in accordance with applicable local rules and project requirements.
• Identify training and competency gaps, maintain skills coverage and organise cross-training, shadowing and knowledge transfer.
• Manage onboarding and offboarding rigorously, including access, assets, documentation, training, readiness checks and handover.
• Listen to feedback without retaliation, manage conflicts constructively and escalate employee-relations topics through the proper channels.

3. Communication and Stakeholder Management
• Communicate with the team, management and client stakeholders in a professional, calm, factual and respectful manner, regardless of circumstances.
• Ensure instructions, changes and unexpected situations are communicated early, clearly and through the appropriate channels, and verify that the expected action has been understood and completed.
• Respond to emails and chats in a timely manner and set the expected standard of communication for the team.
• Escalate risks, service issues, staffing gaps, security concerns and potential client-impacting situations as soon as they are identified.
• Provide concise and reliable daily, weekly and monthly updates, including status, risks, decisions required, actions, owners and due dates.
• Develop and maintain effective relationships with Japan stakeholders, the wider Richemont ecosystem, global Service Desk hubs and Capgemini leadership.
• Protect and rebuild client trust through transparent communication, predictable follow-up and evidence-based reporting.

4. Quality, Compliance and Security
• Ensure strict adherence to approved processes, work instructions, security requirements, data-protection rules and company policies.
• Apply effective quality controls, including the four-eyes principle for sensitive or manually prepared communications and transactions where required.
• Monitor ticket and contact quality, including accuracy, troubleshooting, worklogs, categorisation, routing, user communication and closure quality.
• Investigate recurring errors, compliance deviations and quality failures; perform or coordinate root-cause analysis and ensure sustainable corrective actions.
• Ensure all security or potential data-leakage concerns are escalated immediately through the correct channels.

Responsibilities (continued)

5. Tools, Files, Access and Assets
• Ensure proper and timely use of ServiceNow, Genesys, time-recording, learning, performance, quality and workforce-management tools applicable to the team.
• Maintain an accurate rota and coverage plan aligned with service needs, local requirements, planned leave and backup arrangements.
• Monitor attendance, login status, technical issues and tool availability, and coordinate resolution of blockers.
• Maintain controlled and accessible project documentation, trackers, procedures, contact lists, training records and management reports.

6. Operational Governance and Continuous Improvement
• Lead daily operational reviews and contribute actively to weekly and monthly governance meetings.
• Provide reliable data and clear operational commentary; validate figures before communicating them to stakeholders.
• Maintain a risk, issue and action view for the Japan service, with clear ownership and timely escalation.
• Identify automation, shift-left, knowledge-management and process-improvement opportunities without weakening compliance or operational control.
• Coordinate improvement plans with global teams and verify benefits after implementation.

Key Success Measures:
SLA and KPI achievement, with identified risks actively controlled.
Improved ticket, call and written-communication quality.
Timely escalation and closure of operational, people, security and compliance actions.
Accurate reporting and predictable stakeholder communication.
Demonstrable improvement in team capability, process adherence and client confidence.
Effective onboarding, knowledge coverage and succession or backup arrangements.

Importantly:
This position is a people-manager and service-ownership role. The Shift Leader is expected to understand the operation in sufficient depth to challenge, guide and support the team, while avoiding excessive delegation of core management responsibilities.
Asking for support is encouraged when needed, but risks, gaps and bad news must be communicated early. The Shift Leader remains accountable for confirming that agreed actions are completed and produce the expected result.
The Shift Leader must be the visible point of leadership for the Japan team: proactive with the client and management, consistent with the team, uncompromising on security and compliance, and focused on sustainable service improvement.